Endgame Never Is
by SirusPolaris
Summary: Drabble 7: They are still bitter enemies but they had both worn the same armor once. Zutara Drabbles.
1. Trigonometry

**A/N: **I don't hate Mai. But I do hate Maiko. Therefore, this fic needed to be written. The start of yet another drabble series in the Zutara genre. More to come.

**Disclaimer: **Bryke owns this. Not me.

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**Trigonometry**

Mai loves Zuko, and Zuko loves Mai. It makes sense that they should be together, someday married (like simple math—Mai plus Zuko equals husband, equals wife). Zuko likes the sense it makes and Mai likes the sum of the equation, and so everything fits naturally, perfectly, like the teeth of a key slipping into a lock.

It makes sense that they should marry (everyone says so) because Mai is a noblewoman, and has the makings for a perfect future queen. She's smart, polite, level-headed and wise to the ways of Fire Nation politics. She has impeccable breeding, and Agni help him but he can't help but picture her sitting prim and proper on his mother's throne, face cold and flat like a river stone but her eyes like needles digging into his skin.

Sometimes, Zuko thinks (when he's alone and truly honest with himself), she's too empty, too much a weapon (she's deadly and accurate and never misses and sometimes it's just not _human _the way she can take lives without batting a perfectly-curled eyelash). Everything about her is sharp like her knives—her wit and her tongue and her beauty—but she _loves_ him, loves him deep and hard and true and Zuko has been without such tenderness for so very long that it almost hurts to see the adoration shining out of her dark, guarded eyes.

It scares him as much as it thrills him, until his hands are shaking and he's nervous, nervous, nervous—he wants to be deserving of that admiration (every time he looks in the mirror it convinces him that he's not). He may be the Fire Lord and he may be a firebending master, but he is also a weak man with a guilty, guilty conscience and a black, black heart.

The Avatar knows this, and he can see it in the boy's gray, probing eyes (sometimes Zuko thinks that being the Avatar allows Aang to see deep into his soul, uncovering all of the sins that have accumulated like sludge in the gutters of his heart). The Avatar sees the heaviness in Zuko's crooked, boyish smiles and the worry behind his eyes. He knows how Zuko fears he will become his father (fears that he already is).

Aang also sees what Zuko himself refuses to—sees the absent way his hand traces the outline of the star-shaped scar on his chest when he's daydreaming, sees this strange, dark longing for something that can never be his (should never be his). The Avatar sees the darkest secret in his heart, and sees Katara's picture there.

Aang knows all of this without ever hearing a confession. At first, Zuko was terrified that his newfound friend would once again see him as an enemy once his secrets were revealed. Instead, the Avatar turns a compassionate eye Zuko's way when Mai delicately slips her arm through his, but says nothing (his silence hurts more than a blast of sharpened air ever could).

Mai either doesn't notice the sweatiness of his palms and the stiffness in his gait when the waterbender is near or simply doesn't care (like Aang, she never asks, though there is never any hint of sympathy in her gaze).

But Mai loves Zuko, and Zuko loves Mai. He will marry her and she will be a proper Fire Lady and his nation will prosper under their rule (simple math).

No one argues this, except for Toph.

Unlike the Avatar, Toph doesn't need ancient spiritual powers to see into people's hearts—Toph can uncover a secret simply by listening and feeling to what the person_ isn't_ saying. Toph knows everyone's secrets, even Zuko's (especially Zuko's), but unlike Aang, Toph doesn't have reservations on keeping quiet about them.

"You're making a mistake," she tells him one day, out of the blue, in a voice that is too know-it-all for his liking.

"What do you mean?" he asks, and Toph snorts in an unladylike fashion, flexing her toes in the dirt.

"Needles," she says. "You shouldn't marry her."

This irritates him, and so he snaps, "Why not? I'm in love with her."

Toph doesn't laugh like he'd expected her to. She only says, in a calm, slightly-sad voice, "It's not nice to lie to her like that," before fixing him with a blank stare that shoots electricity straight through the scar below his heart, making it throb slightly beneath his heavy red robes. "It's not nice to lie to yourself so much either, Sparky."

Zuko has nothing to say to that.

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TBC

Reviews are like food. I need them to survive.

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	2. She Who Is Naught

**A/N: **This was a surprisingly difficult drabble to write-- it started off fine, but near the end I was about ready to rip my hair out and officially label Mai as my LEAST FAVORITE AVATAR CHARACTER OF ALL TIME... (for the record, that position is still upheld by Aang, though Mai is still doing her damndest to usurp the title). But anyways, I tried by best to personify my sympathy for her-- it's hard to be completely in love with someone who doesn't want you the same way. Anyways, I hope this drabble isn't too sappy or cliche-- I really don't like it as much as the first but I wanted something to show you all.

Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Roses are red, violets are blue. Me no own, so you no sue.

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**She Who Is Naught**

There are many things that Mai can confidently say that she hates. Boredom, for one, is at the top of the list, followed closely by Azula and Ozai, stewed pig-chicken dumplings, ostrich-horseback riding, going swimming, and Zuko's favorite earthbender (the blind girl is painfully crude, says mean things to her even when Zuko is around, but what's worse is the pitying look on Toph's pale, pale face, the one she gives Mai without realizing sometimes).

But despite the rumors that have been circulating the Fire Nation palace, Mai doesn't hate Katara. She'd even go so far as to say the girl is completely tolerable (which is the closest thing to a compliment that Mai will allow herself to give foreigners).

In fact, she finds it hard to believe that _anyone_ could hate Katara—Katara is sweet and strong and, Mai admits, strangely pretty (in a most barbaric way). She is the Avatar's waterbender and most beloved friend, and Mai must watch as the whole world gravitates to her like orbiting planets around the sun, (everyone loves her, even her homeland, despite her Neanderthal-esque manners and her inferior bloodline).

Mai isn't jealous, of course. Mai has Zuko and will be Fire Lady and has nothing to be jealous of. But something about seeing people, _her_ people, so enamored with this strange girl starts up an ache somewhere deep in the unfeeling depths of her heart (the courtiers find her fascinating. Iroh has already semi-adopted her and her brother since their father returned to the South Pole. Ty Lee calls her a Water Tribe princess. And Zuko…).

"She's done me a great service," Zuko tells her one day, after Mai catches the two of them chatting amiably in the lower courtyard (innocently, she knows for certain, because Zuko doesn't have the strength to be unfaithful and Katara is too strong to let him).

This unnerves her ever so slightly, and so she feels obliged to prompt him to elaborate with a cautious "how?"

Zuko doesn't give her a comforting smile, or touch her face, or kiss her chastely like he normally does when she shows any sign of unrest, and Mai wonders if every man is as easily toppled and changed by strange women (she wonders if it's possible for women like her to change them back).

"By hating me," he says with an unreadable look in his good eye that sends a spike of fear straight through the thick skin of her heart.

So she tells him in a voice clipped with annoyance, "Well, the peasant's certainly not alone in that," and doesn't speak to him for a week.

Later, he makes it up to her by helping Aang find the perfect precious stone to carve for a traditional Water Tribe betrothal necklace.

She's not jealous (not at all). After all, Mai was born wealthy, sophisticated, and blessed—she has everything she could ever want, including a future throne and the love of a king (doesn't she?). Katara has nothing, only the clothes on her back and the charm in her smile, her country is the poorest of all the nations and the man that loves her is still just a boy.

Therefore, there is no sensible reason why one quick, guilty look from Zuko would turn Mai's riches to dust in front of her eyes—Mai has everything she's ever dreamed of having and more. So why does it feel like it's all slipping away?

Sometimes, when Zuko is attending stuffy meetings with angered diplomats or studying post-war economy with Iroh and she's all alone (again), Mai watches Katara with her easy smiles and her loyal, steadfast companions and the Avatar's whole-hearted affection, and she feels so empty, like a hole or shadow.

It's a feeling Mai recognizes strongly, a familiar ache that never really disappears but grows and fades in cycles— she feels it too when she and Zuko make love (on those nights he dreams of his father, it keeps the nightmares at bay). He'll touch her and kiss her like a lover should and she'll want so badly to hear him say something, _anything_, to at least _look_ at her when he finishes, but his mouth remains firmly shut against any words of love or lust building there and his eyes are always, _always_ closed (despite how she pretends not to, she knows what he's biting his lip to keep from saying, she knows who he sees when he won't look at her).

Every one of those nights leaves her feeling cold and unfulfilled and so devastatingly _empty_. She feels like the negative of a person she does not despise, a girl she should not envy, and it hurts like a betrayal but it never shows.

Katara can create sparkling ice sculptures from dirty dish water, can stop a Fire Nation monsoon for a few precious seconds with a wave of her arms. Katara can best Zuko in a spar, and together the two of them sometimes manage to defeat the Avatar himself.

Katara, Katara, Katara. Katara who is flawed, and foolish, and not-quite-pretty enough to be proper competition. Katara who may or may not feel the Fire Lord's eyes trail after her when she leaves a room, despite how cold and stiff Mai's hand is on his arm.

Mai doesn't hate Katara (she doesn't, she doesn't). The pity in Toph's eyes tells her that neither does her fiancé.

Naturally, this breaks her heart.

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TBC

Reviews are better than crack, and I'm _so _addicted.

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	3. You Are Not The Sun

**A/N: **To be 100 honest, I abhor this chapter, but I wanted to give you guys something else to chew on. I think I struggled so much to grind this out because I really do dislike Aang. He's my least favorite character in the series, and possibly the hardest to portray (so, sorry if he's painfully OOC).

And I promise, there's a better chapter in the works.

**Disclaimer:** Blah blah blah who reads these? I don't own Avatar. If I did, Zutara would be cannon, and Aang would have little to no screen time.

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**You Are Not the Sun**

Some days, he's almost positive that he has her completely (some days, he thinks, it's enough). Mostly, though, having her beside him is like orbiting a black hole—like trying to grab at something beautiful only to find that when he gets close it's only a shimmering illusion, and no matter how hard he tries Aang always seems to wind up clutching only handfuls of empty air.

It's nothing more than a strange intuitive tic, like the prickling of hair along his tattooed arms at the rustling of a restless spirit the next realm over, but he feels it all the same when her eyes get that faraway look to them, when she sighs under her breath in those moments when they're alone. It creeps up his spine in foreboding little inches, until there are goose bumps across his shoulder blades and fear in his heart and he's left looking desperately for something that isn't there (was _never_ there).

It's silly, he knows, completely stupid to doubt the surety of her love, because she has always been there since the very beginning, tried and true with all her little heart behind him to back him up, and she would never, _ever_ hurt him. When he forgets this, he forces himself to remember the sweetness of her smile and the glow in her eyes the day of Zuko's coronation, the certainty in her mouth against his as she drew him to her and kissed him, _really_ kissed him (it's everything he's ever wanted).

He loves her, loves her so much he can't think straight sometimes, and it's thrilling and painful and he wants it to go on forever and he wants it to stop (_god, _he wants it to stop). She's perfect and beautiful and kind but he can't touch it or feel it or claim it, despite how she leans into his embrace and returns his nervous kisses (deep down, he _knows_ she only does it out of some deep desire to make him happy and little more, but he can't help forgetting this when she's so warm and so close). He loves her—this he knows. And when she looks at him with eyes so big and so blue he's almost certain she loves him back (almost).

It takes almost an entire year for Aang to figure out the source of the ominous feelings surrounding his and Katara's tentative relationship. Nine months of talking to countless sycophants and affronted diplomats, negotiating lengthy settlements and signing treaty after treaty (each one, no matter how thorough, always leaves both parties a little unsatisfied). Nine months of liberating Earth Kingdom colonies and aiding Zuko to fend off the violent insurgents that had been threatening his throne ever since his coronation. Nine months of restoring a world torn apart by war and hate, nine months of cleaning up Ozai's mess.

It's hard and it's suffocating like nothing he's ever done before, but for once, he finds himself unable to shy away. Nothing is as he thought it would have been before Ozai's defeat—he'd saved the world and ended the war, he'd given Zuko back his crown, he'd _finally _gotten Katara to kiss him. So why does it feel like he'd accomplished nothing?

Nothing is as it should be and he hates it worse than he hates being the last Airbender, hates it worse than being alone for so, so long, hates it worse than his arrows and Zuko's scar and Katara's sad, distant eyes (gifts to children from a world so broken that it wrecked them, too).

Despite its liberation, Zuko's country is in ruins, its government crumbling and its economy in shambles. During their stay, there are no grand banquets or lavish political parties—Zuko is a good man and a strong leader, and refuses to feast while his people starve, despite how the noblemen and women turn up their noses, despite the disapproving glares Mai sends at her fiancé over meager dinners of rabbaroo stew and dumplings.

"Sometimes, I feel like I'm incapable of making her happy," Zuko tells him over a private cup of tea.

Aang nods and sips pensively at his tea and silently hates how much he can relate to that feeling. He wants to tell Zuko to try harder, to pay attention, to crumble and cave and just _give in_ to her (because he's tried, he's really _tried_ to erase all of her hidden disappointments but he just _can't_).

He says nothing, only watches as Zuko absently touches his hand to his sternum, rubbing the scar buried beneath his fine silk robes. It's an automatic gesture, Aang has noticed over the past few months, that the Fire Lord makes when he's thinking about something he shouldn't be.

Zuko stares hard into the depth of his teacup, brows furrowed and hand still tracing the lightning burn, and in that moment Aang is torn between bitterness and pity (he's not stupid, he's not blind, and he recognizes that faraway look in Zuko's eye just as easily as he feels it in Katara's).

It's just split second, and Zuko breaks out of his daze and avoids Aang's eyes, looking wary and apologetic as he excuses himself from the table.

The guilt in Zuko's expression stays with him for a long time, and he doesn't need Toph to tell him what it was his friend was sorry for.

In the beginning, during the war, he was terrified of the Fire Lord taking Katara away from him. The war is now over and he's still scared of losing her, but it's to a different Fire Lord and through far more complicated means. He knows that this is the wedge being driven between him and everything he ever wanted, and he wants to tear at Zuko with his bare hands, wants to dig his fingers into her face and _make_ her see him, to rip out that sadness in her eyes because she _shouldn't_ be sad when he's trying so hard to make her happy.

But when he thinks about it, about how he should be angry, he can smell the salty scent of her hair and the feel the calluses on her palm, and he forces himself to forget everything else. If he tries, he can convince himself that she wants him, that she loves him, that he's all that she could ever want (sometimes, he really believes it. Sometimes, it's enough).

Katara is everything, _everything_—he worships her, loves her so hard that it hurts. She fills his brain and his lungs until she merges with his vessels and cells and becomes part of him, and he can feel her emptiness as if it's his own. She is everything that he has ever wanted, and having her is worth all of the things he's sacrificed to get there. Katara is enough.

He _loves_ her.

(He hadn't understood)

Katara is everything he ever wanted.

Katara is enough.

(Except when she is not).

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I'd do this for money, but I'll take feedback as well. Please, review. It's the fuel I need to keep going on chapters actually worth reading.


	4. Angles

**A/N: **Hey guys! Sorry for the lapse in updates (again). I really just... suck at this deadline thing. My excuse: senior year of college and some major personal drama. A friend of mine got hit by a car two weeks ago and has been in the CCU ever since-- I'm sure he'd appreciate your prayers and satanic chants and voodoo wishes (whichever you're most comfortable with). Anyways, here's a long chapter to try and make up for it. I love writing Katara, so this drabble kind of got out of hand... Hope you like it!

**Disclaimer: **I make no profit off of this (but I'm not going to lie, it'd be really freaking sweet if I did!)

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**Angles**

Katara is pretty sure there's something wrong with her. It's a hidden discomfort, so subtle and slow that sometimes she's not even sure if it's really there at all, and she feels stupid for worrying about it (because practical girls like her don't fret over phantom pains when there are real wounds to be healed). It doesn't quite hurt but she cannot ignore it, this feeling of fragmentation like something inside of her has become disconnected and isolated from the rest of her, and no matter how she pushes and twists she can't make it go back into place. Deep down in the darker depths of her self she can feel the shifting and grinding of broken pieces trying to force their way back together—it feels like walking a dislocated bone.

At first, she dismisses the feeling as homesickness. She's been away from home for nearly two years—almost nine months longer than any of her father's troops had been—she misses the snow and her grandmother's cooking and the musky scent of animal skins, and in the blistering heat of Fire Nation summers she misses the icy drafts blowing in off of the water and the crisp taste of the cold in her lungs.

But Katara understands why she cannot have those things. Zuko needs them now more than ever. His country is crumbling into dissent around his newly-conquered throne, and despite how every one of their rag-tag little group misses their homes and their families, they do not have the heart to leave the Fire Lord to rebuild his alliances alone. They may not be a family, and they may not even be friends, but they will not abandon each other now.

So they stay at the Fire Nation capitol, surrounded by what was until recently enemy territory, through the monsoon season and into the driest days of summer. Each passing day is a struggle, and Katara feels more crooked and broken the longer she witnesses Aang's peace treaties disintegrate into rebellion, the more she sees Ozai's loyalists grow in number, the longer she listens to Toph and Sokka organize counterstrikes against the multiplying insurgents, the longer she watches Zuko desperately trying to hold his life together (he looks on the outside like she feels on the inside, and all of her aching parts feel a little bit better when he's around).

Zuko seems to recognize the brokenness in her as something familiar, and though he never mentions it outright there are these moments when she catches him watching her (with a gaze too steady to be entirely casual) and Katara thinks that maybe he really understands. When she looks, she can see the fragmentation in Zuko's movements and it eases the clawing loneliness in her own heart. It feels good to know that at the very least, she's not the only one who feels broken, she's not the only one with something wrong with her. And on those days that Aang comes to her with that unbearable sadness in his tired grey eyes she thinks back to the strange, quiet glances that the young Fire Lord surreptitiously sends her way, and it prevents her from shattering completely.

Sometimes, she thinks that the Fire Nation is making more progress than she often gives it credit for—Zuko's advisors treat her and her friends with a detached sort of respect (which is better than nothing) and the nobles have come to consider her and her brother as rare commodities. These days, it's only the calloused, affronted looks Mai shoots her over tense, formal tea ceremonies that have her hackles raised (she wants to trust her because Zuko trusts her, but Katara cannot forgive the flippant way Mai gambled with her baby brother's life all that time ago, as if it meant nothing to her).

"She's jealous," Toph tells her matter-of-factly, scuffing her bare toes on the lush red carpet. She is sitting on the floor beside Katara's borrowed bed, back to the mattress and palms to the ground (she can sense what's going on along the entire floor this way, and Katara wonders if she can detect the way the dislocated bone in her heart aches at that statement as easily as she can detect the maid changing the linens three rooms over).

Katara snorts, her brush pausing against a long, slightly-greasy lock of Toph's hair. "Jealous of what? Mai's got nothing to be jealous of."

This is true. Mai has a crown and a king and a country full of change. And though Katara feels blessed and grateful for the things that she has earned she knows that in the pomp and circumstance of Fire Nation politics (the world Mai and Zuko live in now) all of her bending skills are irrelevant-- the most powerful people at the dinner table are the wealthy, and the revered. In this strange new world, Katara is a soldier, not a diplomat, and she is privileged to eat alongside the Avatar and the Fire Lord (and though she would disagree with this, Katara understands that things are different here).

Toph shrugs. "She thinks you're prettier than her," she says bluntly. "She's scared of you."

"Well, that's ridiculous," Katara frowns, though she knows all too well about Toph's brutal honesty.

"_I _don't think it's ridiculous," Toph says with a sideways glance over her shoulder. Her milky, unseeing eyes bore unflinchingly into Katara, eerily still and way too receptive.

Katara tugs the brush tactfully through a thick knot near the nape of Toph's neck, successfully averting the girl's blind, concentrated stare. "Of course it's ridiculous—we're all on the same side now, aren't we? She's got no reason to be scared of me."

She can feel more than see Toph grimace as she works the teeth of the brush through the matted patch of hair. The tangled locks are soft and a little slippery between her calloused fingers, and Katara takes the odd moment of silence from Toph to work a knot with her fingers.

The younger girl seems too involved in her own thoughts to provide her usual complaints, which spikes a flighty, nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. A quiet Toph is much more dangerous than a loud Toph.

Katara had just finished smoothing out the tangle when Toph finally speaks.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not Mai's biggest fan," Toph says, pressing her palms more firmly to the floor, "but she's not wrong to worry."

Katara's frown deepens. "You don't really think that I'd--"

"No, you don't get it," Toph cuts in, her loud, grating voice turning soft and almost sad. "She's afraid Zuko is in love with you."

Katara flinches so hard she drops the brush. All at once, she remembers all of the quiet, late night conversations after their mission to avenge her mother, the tears and worries of children fighting a grown up's war. She remembers the comradeship she felt with Zuko then, knowing that he too was grappling with that strange aching feeling that she seems to feel more intensely these days now that the war is over. She pictures those dark, burning looks he sends her when he thinks she's not looking (full of hope and fear and longing she'd never interpreted before). There's a pause as the two girls process what has just happened, in which Katara tries to suppress the strange feeling of guilt welling like a flood inside of her (_he doesn't, he can't, _I_ can't_).

Toph grins knowingly, blind eyes burning into her skin like white-hot irons and branding that aching place inside of her with a look that says '_I know your secrets.'_

"Th-that's crazy…" Katara stutters, flustered and red-faced. "It's…"

But Toph doesn't need to feel her vibrations to sense the rapid racing of her pulse.

"Don't you want to know if he _is_ in love with you?" Toph teases, "I know, you know."

"He isn't," Katara says firmly, but they both can sense the uncertainty in her voice. Toph's smirk doubles.

Before Toph can taunt her with something witty or unsettle her with something true, Katara mutters a hasty excuse and flees from the room (however, she cannot escape the _I-see-you_ look Toph's face, a look that haunts her for several days).

After this, she avoids Zuko for weeks and refuses to meet Aang's eyes when she tells him she loves him (she wonders why what Toph had said is bothering her so much, why this information prevents her from looking at her boyfriend when she tells him she cares). And though Toph never mentions it again, Katara knows she can see the confliction grinding inside of her like all of her broken pieces, rubbing against the grain and piercing soft flesh whenever she moves.

Sokka once told her she was an oxymoron, and she takes it to heart because it is quite possibly the truest thing anyone has ever said about her. She's a healer and a fighter, gifted to fix and gifted to break. She's a warrior and a woman, a motherly figure and a formidable enemy. She shines on the outside but festers within, with those strange broken pieces bearing down on each other with painful pressure until she's sure something's cracking within her, like a dry twig under a soldier's heavy boot.

The day Aang asks her to marry him is the day she figures this out.

He hands her a stone, a gleaming white quartz with a messily-carved air symbol on the front, suspended by a yellow ribbon. It's nothing like the one she wore as a girl, made of leather and shells and saturated with the salty scent of ocean water and the musk of sweat indicative of its age and use (this necklace had never touched a loved one's throat or an enemy's wrist, it's new and soft and fragile and it seems a hollow trinket pressed into the palm of her hand).

It's a pretty, simple thing made by his own two hands (which Katara _appreciates_, but despite how she tries she can't feel the sentimentality Aang is asking for). It's new and perfect and means nothing to her as he folds her fingers over it with trembling hands.

"Katara, I…" he begins, voice high and threatening to crack (he is thirteen years old, Katara thinks. Only thirteen years old). "That is… I'd really like it if… it's just…. I love you."

He says it in a rush and cups her face in his hands, leaning in to press a hasty kiss to her lips. She responds automatically, mouth firming against his in practiced fashion—he seems relieved at this, and doesn't notice the way the flat edges of the pendant on his betrothal necklace are carving red lines into her fingers from her tight, crushing grip.

"Marry me?" he says.

Looking at him now makes Katara feel ancient and heavy, like the crumbling monuments at the Western Air Temple—she feels like a decaying replica of what was once a living, breathing person. The dull aches in those unnamed places of her soul become inflamed with fresh pain, and for the briefest of moments she wonders if this was why Zuko always glanced her way before leaning in to give his fiancé a kiss.

Aang is waiting expectantly, his expression hopeful and terrified (he is in love with her, so in love with her and he'd be happy if only she'd let him).

"I love you," he says again, sounding surer of her answer. He cups her cheek with a tattooed hand, stroking the soft skin below her right eye with his thumb. Katara's heart constricts and her fingers dig harder into the necklace, clenching the delicate ribbon in a white-knuckle grip and creasing it with wrinkles. She knows what she's supposed to say. It's written in her bones, like the ones Aunt Wu read to hear so long ago. He is her destiny, and she cannot refuse him. "Marry me?"

The strange, niggling feeling of broken bones and missing pieces comes to a head, crashing and loud and painful before disappearing completely into a sea of numbness (she can't feel anything, and it's a relief and it's worse than anything that's happened to her before).

It is in this moment that she finally realizes what Sokka meant (what Toph meant, what Zuko meant, what was said in all of those sad, longing gazes).

"Katara, marry me," Aang ventures one last time, and it's not quite a command but not quite a question, either. He is her destiny.

Katara looks him squarely in the eye (_he isn't_) and tells him 'yes'.

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TBC

Reviews are like Chuck Norris's tears. CURE CANCER BY FINALLY GIVING SOME TO ME!


	5. Nothing Gets Crossed Out

**A/N: **I love Iroh-- I wish he were my grandfather. Unfortunately, this is my first attempt at really capturing some of him on paper (as well as my first attempt to write _anything_ in the past few months) and I'm not quite sure I nailed it as well as I wanted to. I'm partially satisfied with the way this came out, but am looking forward to writing more from Katara and Zuko's POVs. Those seem to come a lot easier to me.

**Disclaimer:** I'm down to double digits in my savings account, so I think it's safe to say that I do not profit from this.

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**Nothing Gets Crossed Out**

Iroh is used to watching his nephew make mistakes (and there have been many since the years when he was allowed to help fix them).

He remembers three long, seasick years spent trapped on a cold, wrought-iron ship that rocks uneasily beneath his feet, accompanying the boy on a mission that, when he is truly honest with himself, he knows they were never supposed to return from. He remembers Prince Zuko's poor, wounded pride and the countless hours spent manipulating a candle flame in meditation with hopes that by honing his concentration he could hasten his mission and journey home. He remembers the aggravation and the loneliness and the long, quiet nights when Zuko could not bring himself to meet his eyes for all the shame he felt for his actions.

Most of all, Iroh remembers the setbacks.

The things that prolong the journey are not the perils of the uncharted seas or the numerous enemies they made on land (because even a banished prince is still unwelcome in countries devastated by Fire Nation troops), but the most miniscule errors in his nephew's calculations, the tiniest inaccuracies of Zuko's heart. These mistakes are small, messy, and each clumsy blunder breaks his heart just a little to watch from the sidelines, but Iroh knows better than to try to obstruct the pigheaded determination of an angry teenaged boy.

And so the retired war general allows his young nephew to lead his soldiers across foreign waters and over enemy terrain to follow rumors of a boy with a flying bison. He does nothing to stop him from plundering ice villages and terrorizing civilians, for he knows well enough the nature of a son trying to impress a father (for Iroh was both, once), and though he understands there were times it physically _pained _him to have to witness Zuko desperately attempting (only to fail, over and over and over) to glean just the smallest scrap of love from Ozai.

Yes, Iroh has watched his nephew make mistakes (there have been many, but they have taught Zuko to _endure_).

And now, as he watches his beloved boy struggling to maintain a solid handhold in this never ending battle for control of power, he thinks that maybe simply _enduring _isn't enough anymore, and that all of his time watching should have been spent _doing_ so that this fight might be easier for Zuko, who is already so painfully familiar with failure and defeat.

He is not surprised when a messenger hawk arrives with a letter from the newly inaugurated Fire Lord, subtly begging him to return from Ba Sing Se to aid him as a member of his war council (to council _him_, Iroh reads between the lines, to support him, to please come home because right now his nephew _needs_ him to).

When he arrives at the Fire Nation palace after a week of travel, he almost doesn't recognize the young man standing before him wearing Ozai's robes and crown (he no longer looks like the sixteen-year-old boy he once was—he's grown taller, and tiredly pale, and the scar disfiguring his left eye has taken on a new, terrifying severity). Zuko is not the boy that Iroh has left behind, and his bones ache with regret for leaving his boy to carry his burdens alone, turning him into the gaunt, melancholy man greeting him at the palace gates.

But Iroh can see that the prolonged war is not the only thing adding weight to the bags under his nephew's eyes. Even though his time spent with the young Fire Lord has been limited to short, tired conversations between plotting counterstrikes against insurgents and negotiating delicate peace talks between affronted foreign delegates, Iroh can see that Zuko's troubles do not only lay on the battlefield and on conference tables.

After all, Iroh knows how to pay attention.

It takes no great effort to see the strain on Zuko's face, same as was aboard the fastest ship in the Fire Nation's naval forces all those years ago when they hunted the Avatar. It is an outward illustration of the frustration that both he and Zuko are all too familiar with, the turmoil of chasing something that might not exist, of trying to capture something that you are not meant to catch.

But Iroh can easily see that all the wiles and elusiveness of a twelve-year-old boy are nothing compared to the yellow ribbon tied around Katara's throat and the dark, piercing eyes of the girl digging her nails into Zuko's arm (it's been years and though he has grown much wiser Zuko continues to put his heart in all the wrong places).

Iroh likes Katara (this is no secret). She is a pretty girl with a giant heart and a tongue sharper than the knives in his kitchen—Iroh knows that it is her strength, her ability to _fight back _that makes her so special, and it is this strange combination of roughness and sweetness that so easily captures the hearts of those around her. She reminds him of his late wife, and of Zuko's mother in the days before she married Ozai (Katara reminds him of every woman he has loved, which he takes to be a good sign).

What he doesn't like about Katara is the cowardly look on her face when passing dignitaries and noble women compliment the carved, polished opal that hangs at the hollow of her throat. It (the look, the necklace) doesn't suit her.

Iroh offhandedly mentions this to Zuko, while his nephew pours himself over a detailed map of the mountains (rumor has it a squad rebel forces have taken up residence on the south side).

"Since accepting Aang's proposal, she's been troubled, I think," he says, folding his hands into his sleeves.

"As the Avatar's fiancée, Katara has much to worry about," Zuko replies absently (Iroh doesn't miss the way his fingers tighten around the curled edges of the map, crinkling the heavy parchment). "She's still fighting a war for him, after all."

Iroh nods and closes his eyes, making a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat.

The Fire Lord glares sternly at his uncle, wise to his subtle commentary (Iroh is secretly pleased to see that his nephew has taken to paying attention, as well). The look on his face is one of suspicion, he sees Iroh measuring the distance and taking aim for his soft, vulnerable underbelly. "Uncle, whatever you're thinking—stop thinking it."

Iroh holds up his hands disarmingly, not bothering to keep a smug little grin from forming on his lips—he knows Zuko will not be fooled. "I'm just concerned about her well-being, is all. The stress of personally protecting the world's greatest hope is quite the burden, especially for a girl as big-hearted as Katara."

(It's not a complete lie, but with the way he's wielding her name like a weapon, it feels like an unfair advantage).

Zuko's good eye regards him skeptically, and Iroh pauses only for the briefest of moments before raking the knife across his nephew's spine. "Perhaps she is worried about making a mistake." Iroh watches Zuko very carefully, measuring his words. "The kind of mistake that would put at risk everything she is fighting to protect—a misjudgment in battle, a poorly chosen tactical strategy. We all worry about these sorts of things in times of war, don't you think, Nephew?"

Beside him, Zuko goes very, very still, and Iroh can almost hear the thoughts turning over in his head and his heart skip a beat. Zuko may not be the boy he used to be, but Zuko is still Zuko and Iroh knows how to read his almost invisible signals (_I am trying_, they say_, I am trying so hard to be good_).

He hears his nephew inhale, deep and steady, through his nose before unfurling his long, tapered fingers from the map.

"Katara knows better than I how to make the right choice," Zuko says in a voice that is firm and flat. "Leave it alone, Uncle. Please."

The words sound stale hanging in the incense-scented air of the private study. Iroh knows that Zuko has always had trouble making the right decision, but at this, he shakes his head and sadly wonders how, with all of his diligent teachings and Zuko's past mistakes, his nephew could come to learn nothing at all.

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Reviews are greatly, GREATLY appreciated. They feed the plot-bunnies, after all!


	6. Winter Solstice

**A/N:** Sorry for the absence, guys. I've been extremely busy trying to gear up to graduate. Finding a grown-up job has also been quite the challenge with Michigan's economy in the shit hole and whatnot. Excuses aside, this is just a little something I've been keeping under my hat for a while. I'd been hoping to get the chance to expand it and make it actually chapter-worthy but never really got the chance, and tonight I just thought, "screw it," and decided to post it anyways. So here it is, unpolished. Hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the rights to _Avatar_. If I did, no one from _Twilight_ would come within twenty feet of the live-action movie.

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**Winter Solstice**

**(An Interlude)  
**

She remembers this:

She is fifteen and he is seventeen and together they have just confronted the man that murdered her mother (the man is not worth the years she spent preparing for confrontation and she is awash with disappointment).

They've fled into the forest, boots making wet noises against the soggy earth until her feet refuse to move, everything inside of her folding in on top of itself (she feels cramped and imploded like a messy piece of origami and she can't _run_ anymore). Her muscles are clamped hard against her bones beneath the black fabric of her stealth uniform, body tensed and tightened until she cannot feel the raindrops creeping through her hair and accumulating under her chin and sliding down the skin between her shoulder blades. The retired soldier's face is imprinted on the underside of her eyelids, cowering before her when she closes her eyes, so she keeps them open and lets the cold water slide across their hard surface.

They're locked in an eerie stillness that unsettles and satisfies her, the tension in the air so palpable she swears she can smell it. In the corner of her brain she registers Zuko's breathing at the outer perimeter of her hearing, blending seamlessly with the static of the rain. In a practical way, she knows he's watching her even though she can't feel his wary eyes on her tense shoulders. He's watching because he's afraid of what she'll do (she's broken and she's furious and she just wants to _hurt_ something).

He says nothing to try and chase away the clashing feelings churning like a tropical storm in her chest, doesn't try to touch her or comfort her—he simply stands close enough so that she can sense the weight of his presence at her side. She refuses to look at him (she'll lose her nerve if she does and she cannot let herself break down here).

The tension swells and cracks as she releases it all at once, the rain becoming a thousand icy senbon that fell a score of trees with a violent swing of her arm. The thick trucks explode in a shower of splinters but she's too numb to flinch—she raises her left arm, throws and follows through with her right, sending volleys of needles into the helpless forest. She advances aggressively on the trees, marching over the wreckage of branches and wood chips as she hurls the rain forward (her muscles hurt and her brain hurts and her heart hurts but she can't stop or she'll fall apart) until her concentration snaps and she's attacking the tree trunks with her bare fists, knuckles cracking against the wet bark with bone-jarring _thumps_.

"Hey," Zuko's voice is right next to her ear, and it momentarily startles her out of her anger. His cold hands find her shoulders, callused fingers bracketing her neck and caressing her collarbone (she tries to pull away but his grip is strong and sure). "Stop," he says softly.

She feels the flood of adrenalin ebb and in its wake is an emptiness and disappointment that she's unprepared for. Her arms feel like rubber and her hands throb dully, and she's just so incredibly _tired_.

He turns her to face him—she's limp as a rag doll and just as easy to pose. He's looking at her with a face full of concern, and she absently takes him in. The rain has chilled his skin to alabaster and pebbled his scar (she remembers the texture from long, long ago—the last time they were this close, she'd touched it). His hair is wet and in his face and he looks so young that it shocks her a little, sends just the tiniest bit of heat to her cold, cold heart.

"Hey." He's slightly hoarse from the cold and the word ghosts over her face like a caress. Her skin tingles as his hand finds the side of her face, his rough palm cupping her wet cheek and he just _looks_ at her, looks at her with eyes so full of apologies and buried understanding and she feels herself begin to lose control (she's going to break she's going to break she's going to _break_).

He's got her wrapped up in his arms before her face begins to crumple, her body crushed against his. His clothes are soaked and cold against her skin and he's whispering nonsense into the wet curls of her hair and it's at this moment when she finally gets why they always seem to wind up hurting each other.

It's because she's fifteen and he's seventeen and they're both to messed up for numbers now (she forgives him anyway, and pulls him tighter).

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TBC

Reviews would probably prevent my head from exploding. :) You know. Probably.


	7. Zero

**A/N:** God, this chapter took far too long to finish... I've never written anything Suki-centric, and though it was difficult to find the right angle from the beginning, towards the end I felt really connected with her character's voice and am extremely pleased with the end result. I really hope that this was worth the wait for the lot of you-- thanks for all of your reviews and support. It has really been the only thing fueling this slow process, and I'm grateful for every comment, criticism, and compliment. You guys are amazing.

Love,

SP

P.S. I'm now a college graduate, with a BA in Communications and a Minor in Advertising. I'm also broke and unemployed, so I'm hopefully going to have a lot more time to write! Hooray for bittersweet victories.

**Disclaimer:** I do not in any way profit from this work of fiction. If you sue me I will probably be forced to live in a box and beg for change outside of a liquor store. So, yeah. Please don't?

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**Zero**

Despite how uncomfortable she is living in the Fire Nation, surrounded by the soldiers that she had warred tooth and nail against (men whose blood she's spilled without a second thought), Suki knows better than to say anything about it. They've all fought hard for the tense, fragile peace that has settled over the four nations and it's not her place to remind her friends that maybe this wholly harmonious world isn't exactly like they'd pictured it to be (there's still blood on her fans and under her nails and she hates lying to herself about how happy she is to be sleeping down the hall from someone she'd have killed ten months ago, but what else can she do?).

She dislikes the suspicious looks she receives from Fire Nation soldiers in passing (do they remember her killing a close comrade in battle, do they resent her alliance with the formerly-banished prince, or is it for her Earth Kingdom roots that they cast their disparagement and disapproval?). The sinewy muscles along the tops of her shoulders ache from being tensed and on-guard at all times, she's nervous and jumpy and wound like a spring—and every time she passes one of Zuko's armed guards she gets this little itch in the palms of her hands, aching to be clenched into fists (to stop feeling like a victim she has to remind herself that to them, she is the invading conqueror in this twisted situation, _she_ is the enemy in their home).

Suki is a warrior woman from Kyoshi, trained to fell men three times her size with little more than a flick of her wrist—her hands are calloused and strong but it seems that all they're good for now are tying long, elegant sashes and signing heavily-worded legal documents and shaking the frail, pampered hands of royal dignitaries. If she weren't so tired of it all, she'd find it ironic that a girl who spends so much time hiding her face with paint would feel so fake and costumed without it (she's not used to being a proper lady, dressed like an expensive doll and treated with such poorly hidden condescension by men and women powerful enough to buy Kyoshi Island without making a dent in their coin purses. She's out of her element).

More than anything, she wants to go back to her island and rebuild her village (she misses her home and she misses her friends and she even misses the damn unagi), but Zuko needs her here to represent the southern Earth Kingdom during council meetings, and Sokka needs her to stand with him beside the Avatar. Her country needs her and her boyfriend needs her and her friends need her, and so she stays.

Under the guise of peace, the four nations are still teeming with unrest—thousands of people are fiercely unhappy with the shift of power in the Fire Nation, with the post-war economic recession plunging them into poverty, with the rising taxes and the rice crop shortage—and though most of the fighting has stopped she and her friends have yet to feel _safe _(she wants to go home and play with her sisters and paint her face and cut through training dummies like rice paper but she's still trapped in enemy territory with no way out).

At least, she's not the only one feeling like a sore thumb in this new world. Though their favorite earthbender is a surprisingly pretty girl, Toph looks as out of place in silken finery as a grumpy bear-cougar might (with the manners to match). The earthbender's skills are crucial during the many political hearings following Zuko's coronation—with her ability to so accurately detect deceit and ambiguous threats—but Suki can see the perpetual frown line carving itself between the girl's eyebrows the more difficult the peace negotiations becomes. It's the same disappointed look she sees on Katara's face every time she goes to brush her fingers across the flat pendant of her mother's necklace (only to find it replaced by a newer, unfamiliar stone). That look is a testimony to all of the mottled, ugly feelings that brew in Suki's chest as she wanders the lavish, gold-embellished hallways of the Fire Nation Palace—not even Sokka's strong hands and loving reassurances can chase the doubt and sadness away.

Suki hates it, hates it worse than she hates Ozai and Azula, worse than she hates the war and the prejudice and the killing, killing, killing. But it doesn't go away, it doesn't _ever _go away (it only gets worse).

One day it hits her hard (literally). It starts when she picks a fight with Mai.

She finds the future Fire Lady in the courtyard, sharpening her aim. She observes in silence as Mai skillfully spins a pair of shining kunai between her pale, spindly fingers before flinging them towards a wooden target at the far end of the garden with more force than necessary. Under normal circumstances, Suki would have simply taken note and then left Mai to her own devices; however, it is the uncharacteristic sloppiness in Mai's form that gives her pause. Mai's slim shoulders are slightly hunched at an awkward angle and she's holding too much tension in her upper arms—it's throwing off her balance and hindering her aim (Suki watches Mai's carefully composed face as the kunai fly wide of the target, her expression blank as they imbed themselves in a nearby tree and she wonders what could have possibly gotten the pampered future queen so upset).

"It's generally a bad idea to sneak up on someone throwing sharp objects," Mai admonishes flatly as she pulls two more sharpened needles from her sleeve, her face as empty and polished as white porcelain. She gears up for another throw. "I would have figured a Kyoshi warrior would know better."

Were she in a better mood, Suki may have let the niggling little comment slide. However, the ugly feeling is back, blackening her insides and hardening her heart and Suki bristles despite herself.

"I guess I figured with your aim being as off as it is, you weren't much of a threat," she replies flintily. The way Mai's sharp little eyes narrow brings back the ache in her palms and makes her fingers itch.

"Making a habit of underestimating your opponents will get you killed." There's a harsh edge to the noblewoman's voice that has Suki's guard raised (she knows what Mai is so subtly referring to; they're both thinking of charred homes and stolen armor and Azula's horrible laughter).

She feels something vulnerable and soft inside of her stiffen until it's hard and dead as a bone. "As will overestimating your own skills, _Lady_ Mai."

The awful feeling that's been gnawing at her insides sparks a tension in the air like electricity (when she inhales she breathes in the taste of copper). She tenses on instinct and moves her hand to the heavy fans tucked beneath her sash, feeling more like the warrior she's supposed to be.

Mai's slim frame stiffens at the challenge in Suki's eyes, straightening to her full height and squaring her shoulders. She looks elegant and ruthless like a woman unused to disappointment and opposition, all sharp edges and cool intimidation. She looks like a woman who knows how to kill a man with the flick of her wrist. Suki recognizes that look easier than she recognizes her own face without the powder and the paint (they are still bitter enemies but they had both worn the same armor once)—every nerve ending in her body is tingling with anticipation.

The air between her fingers crackles. She's never felt more ready.

"It's a dangerous world, I suppose," Mai comments offhandedly, before abruptly sliding into a firmer stance and launching a barrage of senbon with a wide swing of her arm.

The tiny projectiles whistle through the air with surprising speed, but Suki's reflexes are quicker. Throwing her weight to the right and pulling her fans free from her waist, she rolls easily into a crouch, needles striking the dry ground where she had been standing only a moment before.

Mai gives her no time to gloat about the miss. She's advancing steadily, sending another volley (kunai this time, Suki notes as she sees the thicker knives glitter in the afternoon sun) humming through the air.

With a forced exhale, Suki bats them aside like spider-flies, heart resonating with the _chnk!_ of kunai bouncing off of the metal edges of her fan—she has missed this openness of war, the honesty of battle (she's tired of hiding behind conference tables and expensive dresses and half-hearted manners—she wants to pin someone bigger and stronger than her down with her bare hands and feel _alive_ again).

A practiced twitch of her hands and both of her fans are fully extended, but her opponent is already upon her. She's pleasantly surprised to find that Mai is just as skilled at hand-to-hand combat as she is with long range weapons—her strikes are crisp and swift, and Suki finds herself forced onto the defensive at the sheer precision of Mai's offence. The two girls are breathing quickly, muscles straining beneath layers and layers of expensive fabric, sweat beginning to stain their embroidered collars as they fight (it's as much tension as it is release' Suki is a warrior woman and Mai is a warrior woman and this is this only place in this peaceful world they can snarl and snap and claw). Suki blocks blow after blow, dodges fierce kicks with rolls and flips and spins that would have put Ty Lee to shame, but regardless of her skills she finds herself being pushed back towards the pond at the edge of the courtyard.

She needs to put more distance between them. Swiveling on the balls of her feet, Suki switches to an offensive stance and lashes out with her fans, reveling in the feel of air parting around the blades and feeling more like herself than she has in months. Mai arches back hastily, spine bending back at an obscene angle as she narrowly avoids getting her head severed at the neck. The attack works—Mai lands a back-handspring with textbook precision, placing a much needed gap between them and giving Suki an opening to move to more open ground.

She focuses on controlling her breathing as Mai regains her offensive, senbon pulled from the hem of her sleeves becoming air born with a too heavy flick of her wrist (she's using her whole arm, putting too much speed and power into the throw and sacrificing her accuracy). It's almost a disappointment how easily she sidesteps the onslaught.

"You're not _distracted_, are you?" Suki asks as a needle whizzes by harmlessly. "I once heard you could hit a flea off of a tabby-dog's back from two hundred yards away."

Mai's throwing arm twitches angrily, fanning kunai between each slim finger. "Funny. I heard that Kyoshi's finest warriors were defeated by only three Fire Nation spies."

Suki tries not to let the comment pierce a nerve (and it doesn't hurt like it should, or make her angry, it only serves to strengthen that dark part of her heart and make her whole body feel numb). With an almost mechanical ease, she swings her arms and pulls into a crouch, ready for the oncoming attack, one fan shielding the lower part of her face and the other glinting sharply behind her. "I suppose in desperate times even the lowliest of creatures can sometimes infiltrate your best defenses and take what's most precious to you."

Her words echo dryly in the stale air like corn husks in the fall and the attack never comes.

The tense standoff lasts a small eternity, Mai's knives deathly steady and Suki's fans twitching with anticipation. Both are finely tuned to any and all movement, muscles coiled, breath slowed, waiting.

For twenty full seconds, no one moves. Even the breeze rippling the pond's mirrored surface has stilled and died, leaving only the tension building like an electric charge in the space between them. The heady current in the air seems to spark and twist even in the unfathomable stillness, perpetuated only by the way Mai's dark eyes are shining with more intensity than Suki has ever seen in them (if she didn't know better, she'd say that the Fire Lord's impassive future bride was about to cry).

The glossy wetness to her opponent's harsh gaze brings Suki back to the present, where she has picked a fight with the most powerful woman in the Fire Nation in the middle of the Fire Nation Palace and goaded her to the brink of tears. It jolts her hard, like a chunk of ice dumped squarely into the pit of her stomach (she feels like a heel).

She drops her stance and stands straight, fans hanging loosely at her sides, the fight leaking out of her like air from a punctured balloon.

"You're upset." It's not a question.

"You bore me," Mai snaps, jerkily flinging her unspent kunai to the far end of the courtyard, where they kick up dust as they haphazardly hit the ground.

But Suki is remembering what it's like to be a good guy, to care and be kind to those who need it, and so she presses, "Is everything okay?"

"What do you care?" Mai sneers and it feels more like old times, the whip of the banter and the abrasive attitude like sandpaper after Suki's gentle considerateness. "I'm not part of you and Zuko's little _group_, remember?'

"We're all on the same side, Mai," she says, each glittering tear building behind the other girl's hastily composed hostility stinging like a paper cut (she doesn't think she's felt this guilty since she kissed her sister's boyfriend when she was thirteen—she wants to make this better. She wants to _fix_ this).

"You don't think I know what your stupid little friends think of me?" Mai's already rough voice is harsher now, gravelly with suppressed emotion. "I shouldn't be the one feeling so… out of place. _You're_ the ones who came into _my_ country and overthrew _my_ life. I was _happy_. Zuko and I were _happy_ before…"

"… the Avatar stopped you from colonizing the Earth Kingdom? From destroying _my_ home? The Fire Nation was upsetting the balance, Mai, and you were helping them do it." There's no bite in her voice, only sympathy as Suki folds her fans carefully and cradles them against her chest. "There had to be change, and it had to affect you."

A beat of silence passes, long enough that Suki is unsure Mai plans on responding. But eventually, Mai shakes her head, her dark laughter rattling like reeds in the wind.

"Oh, Suki," she says sardonically, the eyes that once glistened with unshed tears now hard and dry as a bone. "You think I don't know how it feels to have someone else come in and take what's yours?"

Mai's back is straight and her steps are measured as she walks away, the gold hem of her expensive robes trailing through the dust as she carves her way through the courtyard back to the marble hallways of the palace. Suki watches her go, wondering why her heart tugs with sympathy towards the other girl who looks so lonely in her big, empty palace, why she suddenly feels the urge to find Sokka and pull him into her room and make him prove his love to her (she wants the certainty, because the blackness in her veins is thickening with the ominous feeling that tells her something awful is coming). She can't put her finger on it, the uneasiness left in Mai's wake, but it doesn't go away, even after her strong, warrior's hands retie the sash around her dainty, womanly waist.

Suki leaves the courtyard feeling balmy and unsettled, the edges of her fans beneath the sash digging subtly into her waist.

.

.

Three days later, Ozai escapes from prison, and her worst fears are confirmed.

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Reviews are amazing, like my new kitten. But not as cute (usually). :)


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